Birth Name: Sylvester Enzio StalloneBirthdate: July 6, 1946Birthplace: New York, NYOccupations: Actor, Director, Writer, ProducerQuote: "See, lately--I don't know why--action movies have become
like the movie business's equivalent of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Just as Quasimodo was the ugly duckling in literature, action films have
become the sore spot for critics. In the old days, people talked about
biblical scenarios of action films. The bible is action-packed. The
Koran is action-packed. Even Buddha had a few moments of suspense in his
life. Yet, when we make action movies now, we're considering moneymaking
machines with no esoteric worth, and that's not true at all. There's a
lot of artistry that goes into what we do. I tend to think of action
movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil." --Interview
magazine, July 1995

Biography
This stoic Italian-American actor with an awesomely sculpted physique gained
overnight stardom as the writer and star of the Oscar-winning sleeper of 1976,
"Rocky". Stallone's early acting credits include a part in the nude play "Score"
and in a semi-pornographic film (since retitled "The Italian Stallion" 1971),
and a role as one of the thugs who harasses Woody Allen on the subway in
"Bananas" (1971). Stallone subsequently landed parts in other legitimate feature
films, but his career only began flying high when he took matters into his own
hands and wrote "Rocky". Though he sold the screenplay for a relatively small
sum, Stallone was compensated in the form of percentage points and, more
significantly, in trading a larger fee for his script for being cast in the
title role. The film was nominated for 10 Oscars (and won Best Picture) and
earned nearly $120 million at the boxoffice. He made his directing debut with
the flawed, but watchable, "Paradise Alley" (1978), and has written a number of
his subsequent vehicles, on occasion even singing a song for the soundtracks.
With the possible exception of "Night Hawks" (1981), which he neither wrote,
produced nor directed, Stallone has not been involved with a film as rich and
refreshing as his breakthrough. To date, he has reprised the role of Rocky in
four sequels. For years Stallone's only other major box-office successes have
been the sequels to "First Blood" (1982) where he premiered the role of gung-ho
Vietnam War hero John Rambo. His "Rambo" films, like the "Rocky" franchise,
steadily declined in quality, while reflecting, contributing to and cashing in
on the increasingly conservative political and social climate of the 1980s.
Stallone unsuccessfully attempted to break into comedy with the John
Landis-directed "Oscar" (1991). As mobster Angelo 'Snaps' Provolone, he gets
caught up in a case of mistaken identity. The film demonstrated that the deadpan
flair Stallone displayed with one-liners in actioners like "Tango and Cash"
(1989) and "Cobra" (1986) did not readily translate to full-blown comedy. Hoping
to create a successful genre hybrid in the manner of his Planet Hollywood
business partners Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, he again tried lighter
fare with the action-comedy "Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot" (1992), but this effort
met a cool reception at the box office. Stallone made a profitable return to
action fare with two 1993 hits: the mountain-climbing adventure "Cliffhanger",
which he co-wrote, and the satirical futuristic fightfest "Demolition Man".
Paired with Sharon Stone, he continued on the hit parade with "The Specialist"
(1994), a pyrotechnical thriller that did moderate business stateside but went
over like gangbusters overseas. His $75 million sci-fi comic-book movie "Judge
Dredd" (1995), however, crashed and burned at the domestic box office as did
"Assassins" (also 1995), which teamed him with Antonio Banderas. He followed up
with the actioner "Daylight" (1996), for which he earned a reported $17.5
million as an emergency worker who must rescue people trapped in NYC's Holland
Tunnel. Stallone surprised many by forgoing his usual salary and signing to
co-star with Robert De Niro and an all-star cast in James Mangold's modestly
budgeted ($15 million) independent film "Cop Land" (1997). In the latter,
Stallone played a hearing-impaired New Jersey lawman who must investigate
possible police corruption. Stallone was formerly married to actress Brigitte
Nielsen (1985-87). His brother Frank Stallone is a singer-songwriter-actor who
has worked on and/or appeared in a number of his brother's films, and was well
cast as the belligerent bartender in "Barfly" (1986).